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WHEN DO WE EAT?
Directed by: Salvador Litvak.
Produced by: Steven J. Wolfe & Salvador Litvak.
Written by: Nina Davidovich & Salvador Litvak.
Director of Photography: M. David Mullen.
Edited by: Richard Halsey.
Music by: Mark Adler.
Released by: THINKFilm.
Country of Origin: USA. 93 min. Rated: R.
With: Ben Feldman, Michael Lerner, Jack Klugman & Lesley Ann Warren.

If chicken soup is the Jewish remedy for the common cold, then a traditional Passover Seder must be the cure for the non-traditional and uncommonly dysfunctional family. In the suburban and secular upper-middle-class home of Ira and Peggy Stuckman, the immediate family has assembled for their annual Passover celebration. This year, bent on honoring her oldest and favorite son’s newfound orthodoxy, Peggy (Lesley Ann Warren) decides to go all out in preparing a kosher Seder with all the trimmings and rituals that would make any rabbi proud. But not even the coming of Elijah could make the observance and reverence of the holiday so easily appreciated by the rest of the family, given the usual taunting and tension among the Stuckman tribe.

Ira (Michael Lerner) is a domineering and judgmental husband and father whose teenage and adult children have run amok, dabbling in drugs and the sex trade, for starters. As if this weren’t enough, his second marriage is on the rocks, his wife is having an affair, his daughter from his first marriage feels utterly estranged from him and the family, plus his own father won’t even give him a hug. Needless to say, a little group counseling is just what the doctor ordered, but if divine intervention isn’t on the menu and the Manischewitz wine doesn’t help, a little Maalox spiked with some hallucinogens surely does the trick. While the Stuckmans take turns recalling the story of Moses leading the chosen people from slavery to the Promised Land, Ira takes a literal and figurative trip down a memory lane not of his own choosing. Passover’s magical realism combines with Ira’s own magical mystery tour to take hold of his senses, and like Moses, Ira finds the inner spirituality to free himself and his family from their long-held hostilities, leading them to a refound acceptance of each other.

Good performances are all around, especially those of Lerner, Warren, and Jack Klugman as Artur Stuckman (the eldest patriarch), but an overabundance of antagonism and the subsequent redemption make the story feel contrived. What ensues is humor that’s too predictable and drama that’s touching but too sentimental; Ira and Peggy’s reconciliation is followed by an unnecessary flashback to when they were younger, each approaching the other with longing eyes. By sweetening this family’s bitterness so quickly, thoroughly and simultaneously, such resolution comes off as an even more miraculous feat than the parting of the Red Sea. Max Rennix, actor & writer based in New York
April 7, 2006